Irish Horror & Disability w/ Grace Daly
/Sometimes the most ‘mundane’ horror is the scariest, as we learn from author Grace Daly. She joins us to talk about the intersection of medical horror, comedy, and Irish folklore, as well as provides some great context for the Midwestern desire to be a part of Team Ignorant!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of ableism, death, disability, medical discrimination, gore, dismemberment, natural disasters, nuclear bombing, colonialism, and religious trauma.
Guest
Grace Daly is a disabled author with multiple invisible chronic illnesses. She is published in the horror anthologies Rewired and Sand, Salt, Blood, as well as in Allegory E-Zine, the Timber Ghost Press blog, and the Tales to Terrify podcast, among others. Her debut novel, a horror comedy titled “The Scald-Crow”, is out now with Creature Publishing.
Housekeeping
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Get our Old Wives’ Tale Teller Corduroy Hat!
- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Sponsors
- Bookshop.org, where you can now use the code we shared in the midroll to get 10% off your purchase!
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/spiritspodcast.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: We are joined today by debut author of The Scald-Crow, it's Grace Daly. Grace, welcome to the show.
GRACE: Hi. Thank so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
JULIA: We are thrilled to have you as well. And we were so glad when you reached out. We're so excited to talk to you about such a not only mythology-inspired book, but also something that we're really passionate about on the show, which is disability as well. So Grace, to get us started, can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and then a little bit about The Scald-Crow?
GRACE: As you said, my name is Grace Daly. I am a horror author who is born and bred from the Midwest. I live in Chicagoland and have lived in Illinois my entire life. I am disabled myself. I have what's called an invisible disability or invisible chronic illness where I most of the time look, air quotes, "normal" or the phrase that I prefer is I look able-bodied, but I am disabled to the point where I can't have a, you know, a normal full-time job. I had to stop my full-time employment due to my disability and due to my medical conditions. And The Scald-Crow is about folklore. It has very strong Irish folklore themes, but the main character throughout the novel is herself struggling with her own invisible disability and with chronic pain. And it is central to the plot of the book. One thing that's very important to me in disability representation is that it matters more than the phrase I like to use is the character having red hair.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: It is foundational to the plot of the book and to our main character, Breej's lived experience and her perception of the world and how she moves through the world.
AMANDA: I would love to talk a bit about the mythological inspirations for the book. So first of all, it's called The Scald-Crow. So I think anybody, if it's a bit of a if you know, you know. So talk to me, how did you choose this fabulous motif theme image for the story? Is it central to the idea of the story or did it come to you kind of in development?
GRACE: For sure. I do want to start by saying heavy spoilers if you don't know, but the book is currently out so you can just pause, go read it, come back.
JULIA: We encourage it.
GRACE: So The Scald-Crow was really central to the development of the book, because if you know, you know, The Scald-Crow is the favorite form of the Morrigan, the Irish goddess of war and terror and lots of other things. The Great Queen, as she is. The book kind of happened— the idea for the book happened in stages where it started with me really wanting to write a book that focused on this element of, like, invisible illness and this experience of invisible illness and do this flip of the trope of, "I know what I saw," where our main character having gone through so much medical trauma and told that all of her pain is in her head, does not know what she saw.
AMANDA: Hmm.
GRACE: And what is better for not knowing what you saw than a shapeshifting mythological figure? I'm Irish myself, so I do like just kind of love Irish folklore. I think it's really kind of under celebrated and underutilized. And so I really enjoy Irish folklore. So I knew I wanted to bring Irish folklore in. It's also a little bit of an homage to my grandmother. The house in the book is her house that she lived in when I was growing up. And so I knew I wanted it to be Irish. And so I was going through a couple different, like, Irish folkloric figures.
AMANDA: Nice.
GRACE: And the Morrigan was just such a perfect one because she's already a shapeshifter. She's one of, like, the big name ones. So there was, like, a lot of material—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —to go with her. And then bonus, I have a friend, Dr. Beth Kempton-Patterson, who is a professor at College Lake County in Illinois. Shout out. And she did her dissertation on the Morrigan. And so I had—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —an expert who I could ask questions to.
JULIA: That's so nice. You could just be like, "What do you think her favorite food would be?"
GRACE: Exactly. And so once I had decided on the Morrigan, The Scald-Crow became the obvious choice as the initial kickoff of the haunting. The Scald-Crow is this equal parts, like very spooky, very ominous figure, especially in the Midwest where the story is set because hooded crows aren't native to this area so it does stick out. But at the same time, what a great way to make a character feel crazy. "There's a bird following me. It's different from the other birds." But if she says it to anybody, they're like, "It's a bird."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
AMANDA: And I love how early on in the novel too, she's like, "I mean, I know how it sounds, but like this bird, it's a very specific bird, okay? Like it looks real. it really is the same one I've been seeing my whole life, guys."
JULIA: This is a complete aside, but I did see someone recently posting in like a bird watching forum, how, like, he was at a, like, New York City graveyard and he was like, "I saw pigeons and I saw a crow and there was one bird that I couldn't recognize. So I think it's a passenger pigeon." And everyone's like, "You mean the bird that's been dead a hundred years? Guy, what do you mean? What are you talking about?" So I can almost picture this instance of being like, "Yeah, I'm in Chicago area and I saw a hooded crow." And a bunch of birdwatchers being like, "No, you fucking didn't." Like the birdwatchers would just be so mad, being like, "Yeah, okay. I'm sure it was a hooded crow and not just like a weird regular American crow."
GRACE: Yeah, just like a weird American crow like, "You fucking casual, get out of here."
JULIA: But, again, this idea of, you know, the horror of knowing/not knowing what you saw and knowing that, like, if you told people they wouldn't believe you. That is, I will say, one of my favorite, and I say favorite, meaning it scares me the most tropes in horror. And so to see it here was also like, "Oh, yeah. Yep that is one of those things, isn't it? That's one of those things that's gonna give me nightmares."
GRACE: And I'm really glad that you related to it because the, like— as I said before, the reason that I chose that trope was because I wanted to underline in the reader's mind, you know, this is the lived experience of people with disabilities, especially people with invisible disabilities and double especially women with invisible disabilities.
JULIA: Absolutely. And to see that also through the lens of the supernatural, the lens of mythology, really sort of heightens the experience in my mind. So I really love the combination of those two things. It really does bring out the horror lover in me. And by that, I mean, I'm very scared.
GRACE: I do think The Scald-Crow is like a good horror book for people who, like, are kind of dipping their toes into horror.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: Because it is a horror comedy. I forgot to mention that before and I should have mentioned it up top. There are a lot of funny scenes, a lot of funny turns of phrase. And it is dark, but there is like a lightness balancing out the darkness. So it's not just like this, like, super spooky, super bummer slog for, you know, 200-plus pages.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: So it is light, it is snappy. It's got a lot of comedy elements and a lot of that is because I, myself, am deeply a coward. I really love horror now, but when I was young, I actually hated it. I have this story of, like, the first time somebody turned on Cabin in the Woods, I went and hid in the bathroom and cried. And I was like 20. Like, I was a full adult.
JULIA: Grace, you are continuing the tradition of horror writers coming on this show and then being like, "I genuinely don't enjoy consuming horror, but I do like writing it." So you are not alone in that regard. I will give you that.
GRACE: Well— and that's the weird thing is these days, after I— after my disability— I have, like, multiple disabilities, but the kind of root cause of mine is this genetic disease that got worse as I got older. And after it got really bad and I was, like, truly disabled, and it was impacting like, you know, every hour of my life, that's when I started turning to horror, because I kept trying to read, you know, like mainstream regular books, watch mainstream regular movies. And I was like, "Man, nobody is grappling with just the anxiety and the trauma and the terror and the desolation that I feel. Why isn't anyone— oh, I know what genre does that."
AMANDA: You're right. And I think a lot of the time— like I've been reading reviews recently of the movie, Weapons, which I finally got to see and really enjoy it. And I will not spoil here. But the one thing that I found people saying, and it was often from folks who don't typically consume horror, was like, "Why is this happening? Like why— where did it come from? Like, what is the worldbuilding? Basically, like, why do these bad things happen to these people?" And the answer is just sometimes like because, it just happens because. And that's, in my mind, why horror is one of the reasons why it's such a good match for folks exploring and thinking about disability. Because a lot of the time, there's no fucking reason. It just happens. Whether it is the context of waking up on a good day or a bad day, waking up with a lot of symptoms or fewer symptoms, or just the general, why me, why this, why now? It is just like that sometimes. And that is often where the worldbuilding of horror begins.
JULIA: Horror loves to embrace the idea that evil is such a mundane thing that it could happen to anyone. So, like, you'll watch a particular genre that I don't personally enjoy but is very popular is like the home invasion genre of horror. And this idea of like, "Well, why did you target this house? Why is this happening to us?"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: The answer is usually because you were home, because we could, because we wanted to. And that is like a particular type of just mundane horror.
AMANDA: Does that resonate with you, Grace?
GRACE: For sure. That's a huge theme in Scald-Crow, too. Our main character, Breej, is, you know, suffering from her chronic illness, which I already spoiled The Morrigan, so we'll just go with it. She has adenomyosis and endometriosis, which are very, very painful reproductive health conditions that impact a lot of women. As she's suffering through that, like, you know, like, we don't even really know what the root cause of adenomyosis and endometriosis are.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: There's nothing she did to cause that, you know? And same thing with The Morrigan in the book is The Morrigan targets her for no real reason other than the opportunity is presented.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: That's a big, big, big part of the Scald-Crow that Breej internalizes these traumas that happen to her and is searching for how they're her fault. She's dredging her soul, she's dredging her past, and she is trying to be so perfect so that it stops. And it's exactly right. It was never her fault. It was never anything she did. And now she just has to learn how to live with it, learn how to deal with it, and find the strength within herself to carry on.
JULIA: That also speaks to a certain level of medical ableism, I suppose, and, like, a certain level of, like, medical discrimination that exists where it's like, "Oh, you're sick? What did you do wrong? You know, clearly, you did something to make yourself sick rather than it's just sometimes our bodies betray us."
GRACE: Yes.
JULIA: And I can only imagine, like, dealing with that as a internal struggle, but it's something that we often see people do externally, where we are so quick to blame people for the illnesses that they have, when the reality is everyone is one illness or one accident away from being disabled themselves.
AMANDA: Or if we're very lucky, getting old enough that disability is inevitable.
JULIA: Yes, exactly.
GRACE: Yes. One of my favorite phrases is, "Death comes for us all and disability comes for most of us."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And comes first, usually.
GRACE: And comes first. Okay. If we're lucky—
AMANDA: If we're lucky.
JULIA: If we're lucky.
GRACE: If we're lucky, we become disabled first. Yeah, you know, disability is, in some ways, you know, a gift in some ways, it's something that the privileged get to experience, you know? And you're absolutely right about it being like a discriminatory thing. It took me a very, very, very long time to receive my diagnosis well over a decade since symptom onset. And I truly believed that I was weak, that I was pathetic, that I just didn't have willpower, that I didn't have grit, that I didn't eat healthy enough, exercise right. Like, I just believed that it was these, like, internal personal shortcomings that were causing me to suffer. And the relief when I realized that I had a genetic disease, it sounds insane. And I know that a lot of people who aren't disabled and even a lot of medical doctors will have an attitude of like, "Oh, if there's no cure, what is the point of diagnosis?"
AMANDA: Oh, self-knowledge, man. Community so much.
GRACE: Self- knowledge. Yeah!
JULIA: And also treatment. Even if you're not curing it, you can manage symptoms, you know?
GRACE: Management is so important. Self-knowledge is so important. The validation is so important. It's incredible. And then just also, you know, when a stranger talks to you and learns that you're disabled and asks you if you tried yoga.
AMANDA: Yikes.
GRACE: If you have a diagnosis, you can be like, "Yeah, fuck off with your yoga."
AMANDA: Yeah, with citations.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: You can always say, "Fuck off with your yoga," but now you can do it with a citation.
GRACE: Yes. Not that there's anything wrong with yoga.
AMANDA: Yoga's perfectly fine.
GRACE: You know, all my yoga peeps, I'm not coming at you specifically. It's just— they, like, to tell me to do yoga, and it will not help.
JULIA: Man, it's not going to cure anything.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I promise you, I promise you it won't.
AMANDA: Even the idea, yeah, of a cure-oriented approach to medicine, to caring for people, the more I learn about and read disability activists.
GRACE: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Learning to see people as whole and perfect as they are and ask how we can support them where they're at is so much better of a framework for all of life. But I think particularly in meeting folks and meeting ourselves where our bodies are at. And that's something, Grace, that I really appreciated that Breej goes through. Like, you know, the first, maybe like fifth or a quarter of the book, like we don't hear her talk to a lot of others. We're really in her head and in both the isolation, but also the bravery of just being with yourself and tasks and what your body will or won't let you do that day is something that I think you expressed really well. And this is going to sound like a dig, but it's not. To me, mundanity is one of the features of Midwest horror that I love the most. There is something about just, like, the cornfields going on forever, man. Like the clouds are just like that sometimes. The routine can kind of, like, dull your senses and almost like hypnotize you until something weird happens, such as the painting you definitely took off the wall yesterday going right back there when you wake up the next morning. So how do you feel about the mundane, the Midwest and the sort of, like, isolation of— I don't know, for me, my anxiety bores me sometimes 'cause I'm like, "Yeah, we've been over this. I know. Uh-huh." Like the critical self-talk, "Yes, you're right. Yep. We said that yesterday. We can say it again today."
GRACE: 100%. So as I said, I'm Midwest born and bred. I am a corn-fed girly.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: I love the Midwest. I love our attitude. And you are a hundred percent right that we hate a whole thing. We embrace the mundane here. We really, like, kind of yearn for the sense of normalcy. We really find like a lot of enjoyment, a lot of, like, contentment in it. I love— like this is— this sounds so— this sounds— like, again, this sounds like I'm making a joke, but I'm not. I despise the city. The concept of the city that never sleeps makes me want to vomit into my open palms, you know? Sit down, rest, like, you know? Like think a thought, like consider your neighbors, really get to know them, you know? Like, calm down, girl. And so, yeah, I think there's like a lot of, like, joy to be found in mundanity. And I think there's a lot of, like, peace and contentment to be found in mundanity. And so I actually think that the horror of something going wrong with the mundanity that, like, you're trying so hard just to keep the train on the rails and you just want that train to stay—
AMANDA: Yes.
GRACE: —on fucking rails. And then, like, you keep finding a severed finger in the bathroom.
AMANDA: Yeah.
GRACE: And you're like, "Goddamnit."
AMANDA: "I didn't need this today."
GRACE: "I didn't need this today! I need—"
AMANDA: "It's a Wednesday, my shows are on."
GRACE: Exactly! Well, and I think we see Breej go through that, where like towards the end of the book, again, spoilers ahoy, she finds the severed head of her father, and she's like, "Well, I guess I have to put this in the freezer."
AMANDA: Add it to the list.
GRACE: "What do I do with this? All right." Like another thing. And, like, what I really love about Breej is a character, she lines up very well with me. She's not even like, "Yeah, you know, I should call the pol—" she doesn't call the police. She doesn't even schedule an additional session with her therapist. She's, like, toss it on the pile of shit I am dealing with. Like— and it's very Midwestern. It's this very like—
AMANDA: Really good.
GRACE: Yeah, it's this very, you know, land of hopes and dreams kind of vibe.
JULIA: I've never heard that one before, but I really like it. Not gonna lie.
GRACE: Yeah. Oh, I'm chock full of them.
JULIA: I also— just the idea too— what you said was highly relatable of the idea of like, "There's just so much going on that I'll just wait until the next therapy session. Like, I don't— I need a moment to process this before we start talking to another individual about it."
GRACE: Yeah. Breej really prioritizes, like, getting high and watching Downton Abbey.
JULIA: Same. Same, girlfriend.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: Right?
AMANDA: Yes.
GRACE: Right? Yeah. You know, sometimes you're just like, "You know what? We're just gonna sit down. We're gonna chill out."
JULIA: Okay.
GRACE: We're just gonna let the storm blow over, which I have heard of Team Ignorant, I think, you guys call it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
GRACE: And I did want to introduce a concept to Team Ignorant that I—
JULIA: Oh.
GRACE: —don't think you have covered before. And I think it has to do with tornadoes and ice storms. So in the Midwest, we are taught from a very, very young age that when a tornado comes through, the appropriate response is to go into a basement or a hallway, ideally something built with concrete blocks and no windows. And then you sit on the floor, you put your head between your knees. You take a book or if you don't have a large book, a folder, and you hold it behind your head at, like, the base of your skull so that if something falls on you, at least it doesn't hit your brainstem.
JULIA: Sure.
GRACE: And that's the plan.
AMANDA: Okay.
GRACE: It is— that's the whole plan. That's what you do.
JULIA: It's real like get under your desks in case there's a atomic bomb coming your way.
GRACE: Yep. Yeah. And this starts when you're— you know, this starts when you're a little kid. Like I remember being five years old in kindergarten and this being like the thing. And you have drills for it. The same way you might have, like, a fire drill or a drill for anything else. We would have tornado drills. We also have the tornado sirens and the tornado sirens are tested. At least in my neighborhood, it varies from town to town, but the first Tuesday of every month.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: That's so frequent!
GRACE: Yeah, at least once a month, you're walking around and there's just a huge siren just blaring that sounds like something from out of an apocalyptic movie and you can hear it for miles and miles and miles around. And we're taught this from a very young age, like to listen for these sirens and to respond by hiding, cover your brain stem with a book, and just low-key hope, you know? Just hope real hard. We got that. We've also got, you know, our crazy ice storms, our crazy winter storms, you know, like, thunderstorms of like biblical proportions.
AMANDA: Yeah.
GRACE: And I can't stress how normal all this is and how it is just part of the fabric of life. A few years ago, we actually had a tornado touchdown in my town that I currently lived in. It ripped a tree in my front yard full in half. And after the tornado passed, all my neighbors all came outside. I brought a 24-pack of beer out and the guys who had chainsaws and saws all brought out their chainsaws and saws. And we just, as a community, chopped up the trees and kind of just piled them together.
JULIA: Cool.
GRACE: And then the next day, I was talking to other people who live in other, you know, like, little blocks in my town and everybody did the same thing. And so this is how Midwesterners function. We hunker down and then once the danger has passed, we take care of it. We share resources. We make it a little party. We take care of our neighbors and that's the whole vibe.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: And so I—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: —really think Team Ignorant is playing into this because we are taught to hide from the tornadoes, to hide from the ice storms, to hide from the sun— thunderstorms, just hunker down until they're over. This is why we have chest freezers. This is why we have beer fridges so that we have enough—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —of these things to last us through the many apocalypses that happen, eh, you know, every other month or so.
JULIA: This context is very useful and very interesting to me. I wonder, though, if it is still Team Ignorant, if, you know, you hear the sirens, you take action based on the sirens. You go down, you try to, like, mitigate the situation as best you can. I feel like the Team Ignorant as we've described in previous episodes in Hometown Urban Legends and everything like that, Team Ignorant are the people who hear a spooky noise in the middle of the night and then turn over and go back to sleep.
GRACE: Oh, yeah. Look, unless if there is a known solution, it is just best to hunker down.
AMANDA: I'm convinced. Grace, I'm convinced. This really— this solves like a year's long dilemma for me. You fully brought me over.
GRACE: Good, good. I'm glad. I— If you're just as likely to die either way, you might as well be cozy, you know?
AMANDA: Because I come from the hurricane zone of North America, which is like, okay, we have an inkling it may be coming. We got to do a lot of stuff. And mostly if you're in doubt, flee.
GRACE: Yes!
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: And so that is a different approach.
GRACE: Yeah, yeah. In the Midwest, fleeing is the dumbest thing you could do.
JULIA: That's— you know what? That really does provide some context via like Northeast Team Investigate versus Midwest Team Ignorance. Wow.
GRACE: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Frankly, I think I need a minute to kind of take this in. So would y'all mind following me to the kitchen for a refill?
JULIA: Yeah, that sounds great.
GRACE: Love it.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda. And welcome to the refill, where I would like to tell you right up front that we are doing something very special. Now here, at least in the U.S., and I think we've infected other parts of the world and this has in so many things, Black Friday and, like, November sales and making companies sort of, like, race each other to the bottom to cut prices is a thing that's happening right now. This sucks for independent businesses. For small and independent businesses like ours, we need your support all year round. And I know that money is tight. There's a lot going on. So if you are in a position to support Spirits on Patreon, thank you. And we want to make that a little bit easier and reward you especially for committing to a full year of support by offering you 30% off annual plans on Patreon at any tier between now and the end of November. So go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast and use the code ALLYEAR to get 30% off your annual plan. Thank you as well to new patrons, PizzaGoddess, Sara C. and Terri W. Supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Rikoelike, Lily, and Wil. And legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. One more time, that's patreon.com/spiritspodcast for ad-free episodes, recipe cards, director's commentary, bonus Urban Legends episodes, and so much more. Here in Multitude, we are always so excited to welcome new friends. And today, we get to welcome a fabulous new one, Professor Matthew Gabriele, who has started a brand-new podcast here at Multitude called American Medieval. Now, listen, all you history heads out there, you listen to Spirits, I know you're gonna like this because American Medieval is a podcast about the Middle Ages, but with an American twist. Every week, Professor Matt is joined by an expert scholar to talk about either some bit of the medieval world itself or how Americans have throughout our history used the Middle Ages to say something about ourselves. You'll learn in the first couple episodes about eels, about the NFL, about swords and medieval battles. So if you're a person who has ever, like, enjoyed a Renaissance fair or watched Game of Thrones or just, you know, gone to medieval times and been like, "This is rad. Why does this speak to some part of me?" American Medieval is the show for you. New episodes come out every Wednesday, so you have a new double feature. It's like we're twins here on Wednesdays. So go on over, subscribe to American Medieval, and make sure to give Professor Matt the Multitude welcome that I know you can. We are sponsored this week by bookshop.org, a fellow business trying to make Jeffrey Bezos' life terrible. I just wake up every day and if I need a little bit of motivation, I'm like, "How can I make Jeffrey Bezos' day worse?" One of the ways to do that is to buy books online by supporting local bookstores with bookshop.org. They have raised $42.474 million for local bookstores so far. And the way that works is it is a climate-neutral certified B corporation here for the public good. So they sell books online. They source those orders from local bookstores near you. You can get eBooks, you can get audiobooks, all kinds of great stuff, games and puzzles. Do all your holiday shopping at bookshop.org, y'all. It's great. Just when you click books and puzzles, there's an adorable, little memory game called Under the Sea. There are flux games, cards. There's Coo. The game, you can buy that right there on bookshop.org. Incredible stuff. And they have been kind enough to give us a discount code. So if you go to bookshop.org and use the promo code SPIRITS, you will get 10% off your order while also supporting independent bookstores. Now, that's the stuff. We are sponsored this week by Soon To Be Mythical. Folks, pay attention, you're gonna love this one, okay? This is a conservation-driven apparel and accessories brand, featuring endangered animals and also some cryptids. Now, the endangered animals are perhaps soon to be mythical, right? We're trying to prevent them from becoming mythical by conserving the environment and conserving the species. And so when this brand reached out to us to sponsor the show, Julia and I said, "Holy crap, I don't think we've ever seen a brand that is more in line with Spirits." You can get a T-shirt with a beautiful logo that says, "Mermaids Against Microplastics." You can get a T-shirt with a yeti on it, holding up a sign against climate change. You can even get a beautiful, very soft jersey T-shirt with Mothman on it. It says, "Mothman: Endangered," and then, "Only appears before disasters." I just— I can't believe this is a thing. I'm so happy it's a thing, up to 25% of proceeds from the shirts that they sell and the accessories and things will be donated to non-profit organizations that assist with the conservation of endangered species and they print stuff on demand, which I love. There's not like, you know, hundreds of T-shirts and sweatshirts lying around in the warehouse. They make them as you order them. And they hope, actually, that the business is ultimately irrelevant because they help the animals become so common and thriving that wearing a T-shirt that says, "Soon To Be Mythical" makes no sense. So help them postpone the myth, okay? Visit postponethemyth.com and use the code SPIRITS10 to get 10% off your order. That's postponethemyth.com, code SPIRITS10 for 10% off. I love the stuff, I love my T-shirt. It is so smooth. It is so soft. postponethemyth.com, SPIRITS10, 10% off.
[theme]
JULIA: We are back. And Grace, one of the things we love to do with our guests is ask, what have you been drinking lately? Whether that's cocktails, mocktails, coffee creations, what have you. What has been your drink of choice?
AMANDA: Apart from the 24-pack after the tornado.
JULIA: Yes, of course.
GRACE: So one of my greatest tragedies of my disability, and it's a little silly that I say this, is that I am currently on a medication that does not play nice with alcohol.
JULIA: Oof. Yeah.
AMANDA: Word.
GRACE: This is brutal for me because my nickname legitimately used to be Whiskey.
JULIA: Love that.
AMANDA: This is great.
JULIA: Love it.
GRACE: And so I cannot stress how much of a paradigm shift this has been for the way I live my life. But recently, there have been a couple drinks that I go back to over and over again. Since I was, you know, probably 18 or so, I've been a big proponent of every Irish person's favorite tea, Barry's Gold Blend.
AMANDA: I have a mug of berries in front of me.
JULIA: Wow.
GRACE: Beautiful. Perfect for Scald-Crow! That is the only tea that Breej drinks as well.
JULIA: Dang.
AMANDA: It's the right choice.
GRACE: Yep. So I love berries, a Gold Blend. I drink it just about every day. It is why my teeth are not sparkly. And I have decided that that is a trade I am cool with.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Just like the ancestors one of Brigid.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: Yes! No, the ancestors didn't want me to maximize beauty. They wanted me to maximize pleasure.
JULIA: Damn right. They said, "You can get tea all the time. Go for it."
AMANDA: Let's do it.
GRACE: Go for it, girl.
AMANDA: Wait, you have a new teabag with every cup? Damn! Okay.
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: Okay. You're doing all right.
GRACE: I'm doing great. So that's a constant for me. But recently with me not being able to drink alcohol, I have been getting into the THC drinks. Again, like Breej, a lot of my pain management is edibles.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: So I love those THC drinks. I've been enjoying those a lot. There is a brewery near me called Church Street Brewing in Itasca, Illinois. That does a series of THC drinks called Pigeon Row. Shout out—
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: Ooh.
GRACE: —to Church Street Brewing and Pigeon Row. And they are so good. They're so delicious. Incredibly— you don't think of weed as like a good flavor. You think of it as something that you're trying to hide in a drink, but they really make it work. And it's great. It's like a botanical and it's really, really nice. So highly recommend those.
AMANDA: Delish.
GRACE: And those have been my drinks of choice recently.
JULIA: My question about the THC drinks, because I haven't really tried too many, and a lot of them seem to be carbonated in some way, like sparkling, like a soda or something like that.
GRACE: Yeah.
JULIA: But my issue is they're usually too strong of a dosage for me to have in one sitting, so I'm like— so I'm going to have like a flat half a soda, like, tomorrow. I don't know. don't know about that.
GRACE: Hmm.
AMANDA: Julia, you gotta share it with me. That's the only option.
JULIA: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.
AMANDA: You gotta find—
JULIA: Come on over.
AMANDA: Yeah.
GRACE: Yeah, I would say share with a friend or— one thing I like to do, and granted you would need to be careful with your flavor combos.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: And I do this with plain sparkling water too, is mix them with juice.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Yeah.
GRACE: So like if you get like a lime one and then you mix it with, like, cherry juice especially.
JULIA: Ooh. Yeah.
GRACE: Because cherry juice by itself is like a little bit like a sock to the face.
JULIA: Yes.
GRACE: And so you dilute it and that can be a really fun, like, kind of, like, unctuous experience.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: Also, you can get, like, THC drops where you can, like, custom—
JULIA: Dose.
GRACE: Yeah, custom your do— customize your dose a bit. And you can find those frequently at dispensaries. And that, like, will just be, like, sweet and it won't have that much flavor. And so you could just throw that into any, like, mocktail and have a pretty good time that way. So that's another potential option for you.
AMANDA: Good tip.
JULIA: I will have to ask my local dispensary what they suggest for that because that sounds really good.
GRACE: Yeah. The brand in Illinois that does that is called Zero Proof.
JULIA: Oh, cool.
GRACE: I don't know if they're a national brand or not, but you know, come to Chicago, check it out.
JULIA: There you go. Yeah, more of an excuse to go to Chicago. I love that.
GRACE: Yeah.
JULIA: Incredible. So one of the things I wanted to ask, Grace, is there's a interesting— I don't want to say dichotomy, but there is an interesting blend of acknowledging Christianity as a very important kind of Midwest influence, I suppose, as well as how it relates to, like, Irish mythology. And I think it's really interesting. because we often talk on the show about, LOL, It's Not Pagan, It's Fine, which is the blend of, like, when Christianity spread to places like Ireland, and they started incorporating certain aspects of what I guess we'll call Celtic folklore in this case, where they were like, "Oh, that goddess you once had that you were worshipping, that's actually a saint now. Is that good for you?" And the Indigenous people are like, "I guess?"
AMANDA: Better than being murdered for mentioning her name, so okay.
JULIA: Did you feel like you— not came up against that, but did you feel that you had the experience of writing that a little in writing The Scald-Crow?
GRACE: For sure. So that was actually something that was a little difficult for me to determine when I was writing Scald-Crow. I was raised, like, super-duper Irish-Catholic. My name is Grace. You can imagine the vibes.
JULIA: We can talk about our Chicago Pope later.
GRACE: Oh, yeah. Oh, the Pope of Ope, I love him.
JULIA: Pope of Ope!
GRACE: Pope of Ope!
AMANDA: I love him. I love our Portello's Pope.
GRACE: I love him.
AMANDA: I love him.
GRACE: I— oh, boy. I just— in the lead-up when they were doing the conclave, I really was, like, sitting there being like, "Come on." Oh, and then it happened.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Let's go, Bears— I mean, Leo. Let's go, Leo.
GRACE: Let's go, Leo. I was very happy. Anyways— yes. So that was something I really struggled with in Scald-Crow was trying to decide exactly how strong to make the themes of Catholicism and how thoroughly to bring those in. Ultimately, I decided that this wasn't my Catholicism book.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: Probably— I know for sure I'm going to write at least one book that heavily features Catholicism in the future.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: Maybe many more because there's so, so much there. But I decided that it was going to get too muddy if I was trying to explore themes of childhood trauma, medical trauma, and then also introducing, like, religious trauma and the generational curse of religious trauma, and—
AMANDA: What is this, Grace? My real life? Come on. That's not what literature is for.
JULIA: We can't cover that all in one book.
GRACE: It's going to stop feeling like a horror comedy and start feeling like a social commentary real quick.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
GRACE: You know, I had to kind of tighten the scope. And so I make a couple nods to that, like the painting of Jesus that is, you know, mysteriously moving throughout the house and, you know, the religious devoutness of Breej's mammy. And I also make like, you know, some references to Breej being named for a goddess, but of course there's also Saint Briege. You know, interesting that the Morrigan didn't get to be a saint.
JULIA: Hmm. They said, "No, no, no, too violent. Demon now."
GRACE: "Too violent. I don't— yeah, yeah. Women don't get to be spooky, no, no, no, no. Briege, goddess of healing, all right."
JULIA: Acceptable. We'll allow it.
GRACE: Acceptable. Yeah, exactly. So there were a couple nods to it, but ultimately, I decided that it wasn't going to be a major theme of the book. I do think, though, that there is a fun, little Easter egg. It's a little bit of like a "think about it, don't think about it."
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: Where— when The Morrigan at the end of the book is discussing how as a goddess, like the beliefs that are put upon her change who she actually—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —is in the universe of The Scald-Crow.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: This does imply that like Jesus is just chilling. I like to imagine that Jesus and The Morrigan like know each other.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: And, like, I like to imagine that they're frenemies because they can't really do anything about each other.
JULIA: Yeah. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
GRACE: And so I kind of nodded to that and then just sort of refused to address it. So, you know, you are the reader. I invite you to imagine Jesus and The Morrigan going on all sorts of adventures. You know, perhaps they go to the farmer's market. Perhaps they go swimming. I'm not sure—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —what they get up to in their free time.
JULIA: That's the realm of fanfiction, baby.
GRACE: Yeah, yeah. If anyone wants to write Scald-Crow fan fiction, please do contact me. I would like to read it.
AMANDA: Yeah, just hop on archiveofourown.org and start the fandom.
JULIA: All right.
AMANDA: Nothing better than that.
JULIA: Get that tag going.
AMANDA: Speaking of The Morrigan, I would love to know, Grace, what do you do when shit hits the fan at you specifically in a way that you neither asked nor planned for? Like, I— as an Irish person growing up, like, deeply Catholic and deeply, like, respectful of all the ways that, like, nature and things we don't know can fuck with us, and specifically wells and water and drowning. What do you do and what options are available to us? Either in your understanding of Irish folklore or the world of the book.
GRACE: So, obviously, as a Midwesterner, I do feel like a lot of the good options are to just, you know, like, keep on keeping on. And I do feel like you see that a lot in Irish folklore, too. One hallmark for me of Irish folklore is that it is incredibly bizarre.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: And yet usually told in this "I find it comedically factual" tone. It's often presented as like, "And then the man comes across the devil and he beats the devil in a battle of wills. And then he takes the devil's legs away and replaces it with cow— with his cow's legs. And he switches the devil's legs for his cow's legs so that everyone will recognize the devil. Now, when the devil is seen, that is the solution and end story."
JULIA: That's such an Irish-esque story.
GRACE: Yeah! You know? And it's just—
JULIA: There's probably a Breej involved too, you know?
AMANDA: Yep, yep, yep.
GRACE: Yeah! Exactly. And it's just said very matter of factually, you know? Yeah. You see the problem, you solve the problem, you do what you can, you move on.
AMANDA: What are you gonna do? I had these cow's legs lying around, like, might as well.
GRACE: You just do what you can and then you move on. And that feels both very Irish and very Midwestern. I have—
AMANDA: Hmm.
GRACE: —no sources to back this up, just my own vibe check, but I do believe the Irish are the Midwest of Europe. I think there's a lot of overlap there and I feel a deep kinship in my Midwestern norminess and practicality and mundanity between me and people from the Irish Midlands.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: Where these insane problems happen, you just do it, you move on. And that all feels very Irish and very Midwestern. And I think Breej in the book really has that attitude, too. She keeps finding these body parts and she really does just keep putting them in the freezer.
AMANDA: She's like, "Well—"
JULIA: "What are you gonna do?"
AMANDA: "—they won't stink my house up if I put them in here."
GRACE: Yeah.
JULIA: Grace, my— one of my final questions I want to pose here for you is, is there another figure or creature from Irish folklore that you think is ripe for horror retelling?
GRACE: Oh, boy, that is a great question. Obviously, all of them.
JULIA: Yeah.
GRACE: I do feel like you could do a lot of body horror with The Children of Lir—
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: —and being turned into swans. That's nice and freaky. Cú Chulainn, I think really presents a lot. In the myths, it really gets yadda-yadda'd that he's like, "Ah, yes, he becomes the guard dog for— I think it's seven years." That really gets yadda-yadda'd. Like, "No, let's dig into that." Wait, wait.
JULIA: That man was a dog for seven years! Let's talk about that!
GRACE: That man was a dog! Let's get into that. You know? and so I think that there's a lot be dug into there.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: Of course, obviously, there has been some horror done with, like, The Fae. But wow, could you really dig into that? And in a less sexy way than the mainstream has been imagining The Fae?
JULIA: Hmm.
GRACE: You know, I— no shade to my romantasy girlies, but I don't think the Fae are hot. I do think that they are an unholy, otherworldly terror. And I do think we could do more with that.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Yeah. As a person who— my reaction is almost always, what if we kiss? What if they kiss? What if things just kiss in front of me? The Fae is one where I'm like, "Absolutely not." Like if a fae's mouth is near my mouth, something's gone terribly wrong.
JULIA: Hard no. I also like the idea of, like, so otherworldly that we can't comprehend it in a way that feels beautiful because it is predatory. And so that's always the appeal to The Fae horror for me in particular. I think Guillermo del Toro
GRACE: Oh.
JULIA: —does a great job with fae horror in particular in a lot of his writing, but—
GRACE: Guillermo is my boy.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: I love Guillermo. Oh, I love Guillermo.
AMANDA: The Mexican-American, Irish-American, like, absolute handshake of horror appreciation.
GRACE: Yes, it's absolutely beautiful. However, we might be running into an East Coast-Midwest thing again, because as far as The Fae and as far as horrors beyond my comprehension go, I do strongly feel I don't need to see the horrors—
JULIA: Yeah. No, that's fair.
GRACE: —beyond my comprehension. They are beyond my comprehension. Seeing them can't be good for my comprehension.
JULIA: Listen, there's a reason that H.P. Lovecraft lived—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —on the shore and not in the Midwest. I'm just saying.
GRACE: Once the sky turns green, you really start valuing normalcy.
JULIA: You're like, "Uh, actually, no. None of this anymore, please."
GRACE: "I'm good."
JULIA: "I'm good. Actually good."
AMANDA: Amazing. Well, Grace, we are so grateful that you came on the show and shout out again to your bestie who listens to Spirits. Would you like to give them a shout out here?
GRACE: I would love to give her a shout out. Annalise, [46:25] you are my bestie. You are my platonic soulmate. And we say that to each other all the time and she already knows it, but now everybody knows it. My first and favorite beta reader of everything that I write. She was born to see my vision. And fun, little boost for you guys that when I sold The Scald-Crow, we actually had a conversation and she said, "It's a bummer that Scald-Crow is your debut because it would be perfect for Spirits, but you're not famous enough to be on Spirits." And here I am on Spirits.
AMANDA: We did it!
GRACE: Hurray!
JULIA: Well deserved.
GRACE: All of my dreams are coming true.
AMANDA: Listen, few books are further right down the middle of our alley, so thank you again. And folks, happily, unlike the authors that we talked to before their books come out, you can pick up The Scald-Crow right now. That's the Scald, C-A-L-D, -, C-R-O-W and links are in the description as well as at spiritspodcast.com/books. Grace, if folks fall in love with The Scald-Crow and want to follow you and hear all your opinions on all kinds of things, where can they find you and your work online?
GRACE: For sure. All of my work is— links to all of my work, is available on www.gracedalyauthor.com. So just my name followed by the word author. Also for all my Chicago folks, that is Daly, D-A-L-Y, not like the mayor—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
GRACE: —D-A-L-Y. You can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, you know, everywhere. I am Grace Daly, I am @gracedalyauthor literally everywhere. It is easy to remember. Please come find me. Social media is difficult for me, and you will be making me feel really good if you follow me because it will make me feel like I am succeeding at something that is not my forte, and I will treasure you for it.
JULIA: Incredible. And of course, you can find links to all of those things in the episode description. So you can just click away.
AMANDA: Grace, as we always say around here, next time you're walking through your disappeared mom's spooky house and go to grasp the bathroom handle only to find a severed hand grasping back, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
[theme]